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Communication

Write-to-Clarify Loop

Turn intuitive experience into clear judgment through drafting and feedback

Difficulty
Moderate
Time to result
~days to results
Steps
5
Confidence
98%

Chu used writing to disambiguate the chaos in his own mind about product management. The method begins with an unresolved idea, not a finished lesson. He would brain-dump a draft quickly and then spend far more time editing, drawing rough diagrams, and asking other people to react to early thoughts. Objective readers reveal gaps between the narrative that makes sense inside the writer's head and what the words actually communicate. Revisions turn intuitive experience into a usable mental model. Publishing may add career, recruiting, and influence benefits, but it is not required: even a discarded draft creates clearer thinking and articulation. This makes writing a leadership tool as much as a content activity, especially in digital and remote organizations where teams depend on precise written context.

Origin

Chu realized that his well-known product posts were not retrospective lessons from someone who had already solved the problems; he figured out their mental models at the moment he wrote them.

Core principles

  • 01Writing can create a framework rather than merely document one already understood
  • 02A fast brain dump exposes the raw shape of the idea
  • 03Most of the clarity comes through editing and external feedback
  • 04A team deserves the clarity produced by deliberate writing even when the draft is never published
  • 05Public reach is optional because the thinking benefit arrives before distribution

How to run it

  1. 1

    Start with live confusion

    Choose a decision, role, or experience that feels intuitively meaningful but remains difficult to articulate. Write to discover the model rather than waiting until you can explain it perfectly.

    Pro tip Periods of rapid role or company change provide useful contrasts to examine.

    Watch out Waiting to feel fully authoritative removes the discovery function of writing.

  2. 2

    Brain-dump the first draft

    Get the complete rough argument onto the page quickly. Capture the examples and relationships currently occupying your mind without polishing each sentence.

    Pro tip Chu describes drafting in roughly two hours before devoting much longer to revision.

  3. 3

    Edit for the reader's logic

    Reread repeatedly, restructure the narrative, and add diagrams where they clarify a relationship. Expect editing to take much longer than drafting.

    Pro tip Test whether each section advances the mental model instead of merely sounding polished.

    Watch out A coherent narrative in your own mind may still be unclear on the page.

  4. 4

    Seek fearless feedback

    Share raw early thoughts with objective readers and observe where they misunderstand, lose interest, or draw a different conclusion. Revise around that evidence.

    Pro tip Ask the reader to explain the argument back to you rather than only asking whether they liked it.

    Watch out Protecting an unfinished draft from feedback protects its blind spots too.

  5. 5

    Use or release the result

    Apply the clarified model in decisions and team communication. Publish it when external distribution is useful, but recognize that the thinking return already exists if the draft remains private.

    Watch out Optimizing for virality changes the intent and can weaken the work.

In the wild

Forty hours on one product post

Chu describes spending about 40 hours on a post: roughly two hours to brain-dump a first draft and the remainder editing, collecting feedback, and drawing rough diagrams. He says the writing process itself solidified the frameworks in his mind.

→ The finished post communicated a model that Chu had discovered through the act of writing it.

Common mistakes

Waiting until the lesson is finished

The writer loses the opportunity to use drafting as the mechanism for discovering what they think.

Writing for virality

Making reach the condition for a worthwhile draft shifts attention away from clarity and can create the wrong intent.

Is it for you?

Best for

It is best for PMs and leaders who understand a topic tacitly but struggle to explain their reasoning cleanly.

Not ideal for

It is not ideal for urgent operational messages that require immediate action rather than prolonged reflection and editing.

From the episode

Brandon Chu on building product at Shopify, how writing changed the trajectory of his career, the habits that make you a great PM, pros and cons of being a platform PM, how Shopify got through Covid

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